Diablo III’s Real Money Auction House (RMAH) house finally went live last night after multiple delays. The Diablo III real-money auction house is now available in the Americas game region for the U.S. dollar, Australian dollar, and Mexican peso. The real-money auction house for the Europe game region and the remaining Americas game region currencies (Chilean peso, Argentine peso, and Brazilian real) will launch in the near future. With the real-money auction house, players will be able to buy and sell the loot they find in the game using actual currency via approved third-party payment services or using their Battle.net Balance. Despite the delay, security issues and some minor backlash, it looks as if folks are diving right into it. There are folks spending money and folks who own rare items that are trying to determine just how much they can get for them. There are currently single items going for as much as $200, as the economy is developing and players feel things out but I expect those will normalize in about a week or two.

To access the real-money auction house, click on the “Auction House” button on the left-hand side of the campaign screen, and then on the button showing your region’s currency in the upper right-hand corner of the auction house interface. This will switch you between the gold- and real-money auction houses. Latin American players will have access to trade using the United States dollar, Australia dollar and Mexican peso.

Before you get started, here are a few important things to keep in mind:

Regional Auction Houses and Global Play

Players will only have access to the real-money auction house while playing in their home game region (Americas or Europe only), and characters created outside of your home region will not be able to buy, sell, or use items from any real-money auction house. Your home game region, along with which real-money auction houses you have access to, are determined by the country of residence registered to your Battle.net® account. By default, Battle.net will automatically determine the most appropriate real-money auction house for you, but players in some regions may be able to access auction houses for additional currencies in their region via the in-games Options menu.

Commodities

The real-money auction house will initially launch with equipment trading only (i.e., weapons, armor, and other such gear) — they will bring commodities online as soon as possible.

Item Delivery and “Processing” Purchases

Occasionally, players may have to wait for a period of time before an item or any commodities they purchased in the real-money auction house arrives in their “Completed” tab. They expect a majority of real-money auction house purchases to be delivered to buyers immediately, in some circumstances, they will need to hold items for delivery while they conduct a review of the transaction. Held items will show as “Processing” until the review is complete.

There is tons more about the auction house system (including how to select your currency) in the comprehensive Auction House Guide and Auction House FAQ. Have you used RMAH and if so what do you think? If not, do you plan to? Hit up the comments and let us know what you think about the RMAH.

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